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What does Facebook Algorithm Change Mean for Hotels

Posted on May 4, 2016 at 6:19 am

When the focus is on engagement, hotels on social media need to keep up-to-date on the latest best practices. Facebook made that a little more difficult this week. The social network grabbed headlines with two big algorithm changes that aim to reward high-quality content.

The first algorithm change puts a greater emphasis on engagement time, or how long people tend to spend on a given post. As a result, engagement stems from more than likes or comments on a post–it also now draws data that Facebook has been collecting on how long people spend on Instant Articles or clicked through its mobile browser. Now, Facebook can prioritize a user’s News Feed based on how long that user has spent on similar posts from an author or publisher in the past.

The second adjustment will reduce how often Facebook users see several posts from the same publisher in a row, a response to user complaints that their Timeline content is becoming repetitive and boring.

Facebook claims that publishers like hotels will only see a very small increase or decrease in traffic and that no significant changes are expected. In all, the social network states, the shift is a move toward quality over quantity and should reduce the amount of clickbait we see in our News Feeds. But, many publishers are already wary of Facebook’s algorithm, with some alleging that referral traffic from the social media giant to their brand websites has dipped 20% over the past months.

So what does this mean for hotels on social media? It doesn’t mean that hotels should give up on trying to reach their guests on Facebook or any other social network. Instead, hotels should focus more on creating and sharing content that provides value to their guests and prospective guests. Here are some tips that Facebook posted to its blog:

Hotels on Social Media: Tips for Engaging with Guests on Facebook

Share photos and videos

Photos and videos can drive up engagement, which will allow your channel to be more visible to your followers. You can also upload videos directly to Facebook, which, according to the new algorithm, will drive up engagement even further.

By uploading videos to Facebook directly, you can also take advantage of these two benefits:

Your videos will play automatically in News Feed – Native videos start playing immediately as people scroll through their Feed. Videos initially play silently, but people can tap the video to play it with sound in full screen.

Your videos will have view counts – Public videos from people and Pages will now show view counts to help people discover them.

Find your voice

Let your brand voice shine in your social posts. It’s important to note that being conversational, personal, and authentic can go a long way toward engaging and making a connection with your guests and prospective guests online. Take the time to post directly to your Facebook page in your own voice. Your content will be more meaningful if it reminds your audience of their experience with your brand.